ᎠUℂᏦ ᏚᎾUℙ
Happy #85thAnniversary 🦆 Soup
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📽 #DuckSoup is a 1933 pre-Code #MarxBrothers comedy film written by #BertKalmar and #HarryRuby , with additional dialogue by #ArthurSheekman and #NatPerrin , and directed by #LeoMcCarey . First released theatrically by #ParamountPictures on November 17, 1933, it starred what were then billed as the "#FourMarxBrothers " (#GrouchoMarx , #HarpoMarx , #ChicoMarx , and #ZeppoMarx ) and also featured #MargaretDumont , #LouisCalhern , #RaquelTorres and #EdgarKennedy . It was the last Marx Brothers film to feature Zeppo, and the last of five Marx Brothers movies released by Paramount Pictures.
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Popular belief holds that Duck Soup was a box office failure, but this is not true. Although it did not do as well as Horse Feathers, it was the sixth-highest-grossing film of 1933, according to #GlennMitchell in The Marx Brothers Encyclopedia and #SimonLouvish in Monkey Business, his biography of the Marx Brothers. However the film was a box office disappointment for Paramount.
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Most critics at the time disliked it because of its "dated" look at politics. Some modern critics are also unimpressed.
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Even Groucho himself did not initially think too highly of the film. When asked the significance of the film's politics, Groucho only shrugged and said: "What significance? We were just four Jews trying to get a laugh." Nevertheless, the Brothers were ecstatic when #BenitoMussolini took the film as a personal insult and banned it in Italy.
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Film critic #DanelGriffin believes that Duck Soup is "on par with other war comedies like Chaplin's #TheGreatDictator and Kubrick's #DrStrangelove , only slightly more unnerving in that Duck Soup doesn't seem to realize it is anything more than innocent fluff."
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#RogerEbert believed, "The Marx Brothers created a body of work in which individual films are like slices from the whole, but Duck Soup is probably the best."
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The film also holds a 93% "Certified Fresh" rating on #RottenTomatoes . It is also one of the earliest films to appear on Roger Ebert's list of The Great Movies.

TBT to June 1976 and my 1st court appearance for the American Federation of Government Employees AFL-CIO. My client Giuseppe Chicollini was accused of being 5 hours late for work and given an oral reprimand. Chicollini (mispronounced Brocollini) said he had to go out in the blizzard to find bread for his wife and children.
Well that pulled at my heart strings ladies and gentlemen and so I immediately marched into the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Deputy Secretary for the Secretary of Defense and said loudly “we will never accept an oral reprimand for a man braving a snowstorm to buy bread for his starving family. Never!”
Mr. Bigshot looked at me and said “Mr. Roth we are in the month of June and it hasn’t been below 90 degrees in a month. Furthermore your client only received an oral reprimand which will be expunged from his personnel file in 6 months if he stays out of trouble.”
I mulled this over for a minute but not knowing the meaning of the word expunge (and not owning a google machine until 1996) I told him “Maybe you don’t know the meaning of the word “never” Sir (I knew that he did, I was bluffing). An oral reprimand does not fit the ‘crime’.”
Suddenly, his face turned a deep red and he looked at me with great passion (or anger, I couldn’t tell). Then he said (quite loudly) “This meeting is over!!You’re an idiot, Chicollini is an idiot, and I have decided that you’re right. An oral reprimand is not appropriate here so I’ve decided to suspend him for 30 days without pay.”
“We’ll see you in Court sir” said I as
I slammed the door behind me.
This video is a classic example of how I could break down my own witness on the stand. To this day attorneys tell me that they’ve never seen anything like it!😉
ps-It was my 1st loss in Court (which I blame on the Judge not fully understanding the facts of the case) Chicollini got fired the following year for yelling FIRE outside a crowded ladies room. 🤷🏻‍♂️
#groucho#grouchomarx#chico#chicomarx#themarxbrothers#screwballcomedy#oldhollywood#orderinthecourt#objection#theverdict#wewasrobbed#graveinjustice#irrelevant#unionstrong